CDB Reports

Analysis

In-depth analyses on the issues facing Chinese civil society. Most of these articles have been written by CDB’s staff or translated from Chinese sources, while others are guest contributions from academics and NGO practitioners inside and outside of China.

Chengdu’s Aiyouxi: Building a Harmonious Community

CDB Senior Researcher, Fu Tao, introduces a unique community-based social enterprise that brings theater, a community marketplace, and community self-governance together in a neighborhood in Chengdu, the provincial capital of Sichuan.

Transnational Activism with Chinese Characteristics

This review introduces a newly-released book on transnational civil society in China written by Professor Chen Jie of the University of Western Australia. Based on extensive fieldwork and mining of the transnational civil society literature, this book looks at the socio-political implications of the operation of international NGOs (INGOs) in China

View from the Media: The Mysterious Decimal Point

This week we revisit the China Charity Aid Foundation for Children's “decimal point” incident from the end of last year. The reverberations caused by this controversy are perhaps surpassed only by the infamous 2011 “Guo Meimei” incident in terms of arousing public misgivings concerning public foundations' financial management.

A View from the Media: Who’s Responsible for Watching our Water?

One of the latest controversies in Chinese society has been the issue of groundwater pollution in Shandong and other provinces. Disillusioned by the ineffectuality of the government agencies responsible for monitoring pollution, a number of civil society advocates have emphasized the role of NGOs and the public in efforts to eradicate pollution

In Defense of the Grassroots

Yu Fangqiang, executive director of Justice for All, uses a blend of sarcasm and argument to defend grassroots NGOs from those who feel grassroots organizations need to be more professional and move to the mainstream of society.